wreck. Suddenly Grace thought about Cleo. How she would be busy in about an hour's time at the mortuary, making him look presentable for some relative to come and identify him. He didn't envy her that one bit.
'Does anyone know who this man is?' said a voice.
'Yeah, I know him,' said another voice. 'On my floor. He's my neighbour!'
Grace heard a siren, coming closer. 'I know him too,' he said. Then corrected himself. 'Knew him.'
Robert Allison, a tough Detective Inspector - and former Sussex Police snooker champion - who Grace knew well, emerged from the front door of the building and Grace, followed by Branson, walked over to him.
'Roy! Glenn!' Robert Allison greeted them. 'What are you two stop-outs doing here?'
'Thought we'd swing by to catch some sea air,' Grace said.
'Dangerous thing to do around here,' the Detective Inspector said, nodding at the corpse. 'He thought he'd step out on his balcony and catch some sea air, too.' A police surgeon had arrived, and a police photographer. Allison spoke to them both briefly then returned to Grace and Branson.
'Any information about what happened?' asked Grace.
'Not yet.'
'I know him,' Grace said. 'I interviewed him earlier this evening. About eight o'clock. He's the business partner of the young man who's missing - the wedding prank - the four lads killed last week.'
Allison nodded. 'Right.'
'Can we get into his apartment?'
'I've just been up there - the porter has a key. Want me to come with you?'
'Yes, sure, why not?'
A few minutes later Grace, Branson and Detective Inspector Allison entered the apartment. The porter, a muscular-looking man in his fifties, wearing shorts and a singlet, waited outside.
Grace strode into the sitting area, with which he was already a little familiar, and walked over towards the balcony, which he had stepped out onto a few hours back. He went out again and looked down at the scene below. He could see the small crowd, the two ambulances, the police cars, the flashes of the police photographer's camera, the tape cordoning off the crumpled figure of Mark Warren, the dark stains like shadows leaking from his body and head.
He thought back to the wedding, when Mark had come up to him so aggressively. Then tonight when he was a drunken wreck. Grace knew from his experience that survivors of accidents in which others had died often got chewed up with guilt that they had survived; it could destroy some people. But had Mark Warren jumped over the balcony for that reason?
That night he had come back late to this apartment with mud on his car - had that been a guilt trip to the scene of the accident he should have died in with his friends? Possibly. But what was the damned aggression about at the wedding? That bit did not fit. He hadn't had a good feeling about Mark Warren. The best man who didn't know what the stag night plans were.
How likely was that?
He went back inside pensively. 'Let's just take a good look around for a few minutes,' he said, and began by walking over to the cupboard door Mark had kept staring at earlier. But all it contained were two dusty flower vases and an empty box of Cohiba Robusto cigars.
Steadily he worked his way through each cupboard, opening every door and drawer. Glenn Branson began doing the same, while Allison watched. Then Grace reached the fridge in the open-plan kitchen and opened the door. Casting his eye across the cartons of skimmed milk, yoghurt pots, clumps of fashionable salad leaves and several bottles of white burgundy and champagne, he almost missed the Jiffy bag on the third shelf.
He pulled it out and peered inside, frowning. Then he tipped the small plastic bag it contained out on the black marble kitchen work surface.
'Jesus,' Branson said, staring at the fingertip.
'OK,' Robert Allison said. 'Now this starts to make sense. I found it on the victim when I was looking for ID.' He pulled a folded sheet of A4 paper from his pocket and handed it to Grace.
Grace and Branson both read it.
'Check the fingerprints out and you'll find it is your friend and business partner. Every 24 hours I will cut an increasingly bigger bit off him. Until you do exactly what I tell you.' Grace read it again, and then a third time. 'I think this tells us two things,' he said. Both detectives looked at him, but they had to wait some while before he spoke, finally. 'The first is that I don't think we're looking at a suicide here. And secondly, if I'm right in that assumption, we'll be lucky to find Michael Harrison still alive.'
The phone was ringing again! The third time! Each time before he had hit the buttons, trying to stop it in case Vic heard. Then he had fumbled with the keyboard, dialling 901. And each time got the same damned woman's voice. 'You have no messages.' But now her voice said something different. 'You have one new message.' Then he heard, 'Hello, Michael Harrison, this is Detective Sergeant Branson of Brighton CID responding to your text to Ashley Harper. Please call or text me on 0789 965018. The number again is 0789 965018.' It was the sweetest sound Michael had ever heard in his life. Again he fumbled with the keys, trying to text a reply in the dank darkness: A'88m breing h$ld-- Then dazzling, blinding white light.
'Got a mobile you didn't tell me about, have you, Mikey? Naughty boy, aren't you? Think I'd better take that off you before you get yourself into trouble.' 'Urrrr,' Michael said through the duct tape. The next moment he felt the phone being ripped from his hand. Followed by Vic's reproachful voice. 'That's not playing the game fair, Mike. I'm very disappointed in you. You should have told me about the phone. You really should have done.'
'Urrrr,' Michael mumbled again, shimmying in terror. He could see eyes glinting through the hood above him, inches from his face, bright green eyes like a feral cat.
'You want me to hurt you again? Is that what you'd like, Mikey? Let's see who you were calling, shall we?' Moments later Michael heard the police officer's faint voice through the phone's speaker again. 'Well, fancy that,'
